Heisler: A so long to Sterling

May 24, 2014

Updated 6:41 p.m.

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In the latest act in this L.A. drama, Donald Sterling has reportedly agreed to surrender his stake of the Clippers to his wife, Shelly, who is planning to sell. Stay tuned. MARK J. TERRILL, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

In the latest act in this L.A. drama, Donald Sterling has reportedly agreed to surrender his stake of the Clippers to his wife, Shelly, who is planning to sell. Stay tuned. MARK J. TERRILL, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Donald T. Sterling

Sterling World Plaza

Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Dear Donald,

This is the letter that I told everyone I would never write because you were no longer a joke but a tragic figure, as badly as you carry your new role off.

On the other hand, the last thing I expected you to do was make a clean exit, as you’re threatening to with last week’s TMZ report that you transferred control of the team to your wife, Shelly, who plans to sell it.

I expected you to sue the NBA and drag it out for years amid more wrenching stories about your life ... and more V. Stiviano celebrity interviews like last week’s with “Dr. Phil” and “Entertainment Tonight” when she got huffy at the thought of anyone suspecting she sold her audio recording and continued to insist that your relationship was strictly professional, even if she called you “honey” and “baby” and said matter-of-factly, “You love me” on the tape.

Of course, some Clippers insiders think that TMZ scoop was a plant by you, hoping to stall the June 3 vote by NBA owners to kick you out.

(The league thought so, too. Hence its terse little statement that it’s proceeding, as planned.) Nevertheless, Clippers insiders also think that this signals the beginning of the end, a recognition that you finally understand that everything you do in your defense, every legal wriggle, makes you look that much worse.

Right off hand, I can’t think of anyone around with a worse image. Russians, at least, like Vladimir Putin. Forget your players, coaches and team officials, all of whom dreamed of the day you were gone. I can’t find any of your friends who has a rational explanation for what you did.

Not that that’s a new development. In 25 years of our – OK, my correspondence, I never found any of your friends (or even employees, after they gave up on the house line) who could explain anything you did.

The Los Angeles Times did find an unnamed “associate” who stuck up for you, calling the NBA charges about destroying evidence and trying to get people to change their stories (including, allegedly, V., who apparently ratted you out to NBA investigators, “father figure” or no), a “smear.”

“I’ve been able to figure out every unnamed source in this story until that,” a former Clipper told me. “I can’t imagine a Sterling associate who would say it was a smear.”

Impossible as it seems, there really is a way out of this. Of course, it’s another one that a 13-year-old whose parents have made him attend Sunday School a few times could figure out.

Sell the team and take your $1 billion-$2 billion profit.

Go on TV once more but without all the smarmy excuses about why it wasn’t wrong, or you didn’t do it, or someone made you do it because you liked them so much, or someone else wasn’t a proper role model.

Here’s what you say:

“I said those things. I knew better but I said them. I didn’t think they would get out and I was in a bad place. I’ve been in a bad place for a long time.

“Miss Stiviano didn’t make me say them. If she recorded me, Shelly had just sued her – ‘on behalf of the Sterling family,’ as a Clippers release noted – for the return of about $2 million worth of houses, cars, etc. that I gave her.

“For years in which I grew ever richer, I worried about what everyone thought until all I was was worry. As tenacious as I was in the pursuit of my $1.9 billion fortune, that’s as tenacious as I was in my pursuit of admiration, by whatever means necessary.

“I thought I was being nice to everyone. In my real failing, I could never trust or even take heed of anyone else.

“My inability to take responsibility was worse even than my comments. I can never apologize enough but I can live the rest of my life in such a way to make up for it so that someone benefits from this.”

Then hit the bricks. Oh, and live up to your commitment, for a change.

One of my gimmicks used to be to note that you weren’t likely to do anything that I suggested, no matter how obvious. Of course, that was what made you you.

For 10 minutes, you need to stop being you. It ain’t funny any more. With what we have learned since this started, it was never remotely funny for you and yours.

I’d say this will, indeed, be my last letter but as they named that movie in which Sean Connery came back to play James Bond at 53, looking more like Santa Claus than 007, “Never Say Never Again.”

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